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Summary: To the point,concise and "the book" for beginners
Review: *Does not assume you know C++, VB etc. *Very well written and to the point. *Examples that are very well explained. It never gives examples that has things "to be explained in later chapters" as many of the books do. *Important things put in box for you so that you need not mark them. *And last but not the least,this book at no point gets boring
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Summary: Former student recommends book.
Review: A few months ago(maybe more) I completed a Java course taught by Savitch at UCSD. He taught from a text that he was working on--- soon to be published. I believe that the book you see here at Amazon.com is the final version of the text that he was working on at UCSD. When I was in his class, I remember wishing that the text was published so that I didn't have to rely on a cheaply bound, xeroxed printout. I don't have a copy of it anymore because I wore it out. It is a very good book for the novice Java programmer. Hundreds of students at UCSD have beta tested it.
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Summary: How to make Java Boring
Review: A programming book, in my view, ought to be fun and intuitive. It should get the reader into writing programs as rapidly as possible, teach him enough of the basics so he can do it, and then fill in the fine points. It should be the sort of book that an interested reader will buy, read and use--without being compelled to read it by course assignments. By that standard, this book is a failure. It is slow, detailed, ponderous. The author spends a page and a half of chapter 4 explaining the "this" parameter, only to conclude that "programmers seldom use the this parameter, but there are some situations where it is needed." The implicit assumption is that the reader first spends six hundred and some pages memorizing everything he will ever need to know about Java, and only then does anything with it. The book comes with a CD containing both sample programs and programming tools; I assume that is part of what is supposed to justify its high price. I cannot speak to the Windows versions of the tools, but the Macintosh version is entirely unsatisfactory. It consists of a crippled version of Code Warrior--so crippled that if you try to use it to write a program from scratch, it tells you that that option has been disabled. So far as I could tell, the only way of writing a program is to start with one of the sample programs and modify that--and neither the CD nor the book will tell you how to do so. Neither the CD nor the book gives you any clear explanation of how to use the tools you are supposed to be using to program. If the author has ever programmed with Code Warrior, I could find no evidence of it by the time I got to chapter four, which is as far as I have gotten. Somewhere there must be a good book for teaching yourself Java, but this isn't it.
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Summary: Java: An Introduction to Computer Science & Programming
Review: An excellent book. I haven't programmed for years, and have never done Object Oriented Programming. This book explains things quite clearly for the non-programmer.
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Summary: excellent book for programming beginners
Review: Anyone who is brand spank'n new to programming I strongly recommend this book. This is a perfect book for someone who wants to teach themselves outside of a class. Savitch takes the time to explain the same concept many times. This is one of the most pleasurable technical textbooks I have ever read. I also strongly recommend this book to instructors who don't have industry experience and/or are to lazy or apathetic to prepare for class.
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Summary: Good, but scatterd
Review: Being new to computer programming, I have struggled to find the best first book for beginners. The main thing that I find frustrating is when an author uses an entire class as an example and then does not go through, line for line, and explains what is going on. Savitch succeeds only partially here, and I found that he would explain something that he did four, five six pages earlier, which can be difficult to follow if one is not yet comfortable with the language and the standard techniques programmers employ. This is, however, an exellent reference book, and even though I do not recommend it as a first book in programming, it is worth hanging on to. It is also a college textbook, which I didn't know until the book arrived. This means that there are NO solutions for the exercises, and the author cannot provide the reader with any. This can be discouraging for the newbie that wants to do the work and then find out if they are even close to a correct answer. One last point: the author takes the stance that it can be a "learning experience" to develop methods for certain tasks, when methods for these tasks are already part of the Java library. It doesn't make any sense to me to tell the beginner to re-invent the wheel before learning how to drive the car.
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Summary: The best book on the market
Review: I am a programmer, experienced in C, C++, and Java. I tried a couple of books for Java. Unfortunately, they all assumed too much from the reader. Most of the books I read assumed the reader was experienced in Object Oriented Programming. I learned C++ from Professor Savitch's "Problem Solving with C++" I should have turned to this book first(it would have saved me a lot of money). The other books I sometimes use as an alternate reference, but this is the primary book I learned Java from and this is the book I take to work(for quick reference). The readability of this book is unique to programming books. I highly recommend this book to anyone starting Java. Although it does come with CodeWarrior Lite, Sun's Java compiler is free online at java.sun.com
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Summary: Liked it - But did not adopt it because of 'SavitchIn'
Review: I am currently a programming major and have both C and C++ knowledge. Recently I just finished a Java class that used this book. This book is very poorly designed, the book is very jumbled and in the middle of explanations puts two pages worth of code mid-line into a sentence. It is also visually hard to look at, it has glossy pages and faint blue ink in some areas. The biggest complaint is that it uses what is called SavitchIn Class to do many portions of it's examples which will be useless in the real world. For example when you create a GUI the author would like you to use his WindowDestroyer Class instead of the setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE) that is a method within the JFrame. Therefore, this book is more of a crutch to beginners. Their are tons of errors too! For example there are several loops that the books show as valid code and if you decide to use them you will end up in an infinate loop causing your program to be stuck. I would recommend either Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel, almost any Deitel & Deitel book, or even the Sam's teach yourself Java in 21 days books over this. There were 25 fellow students in my class and less then a handful had much to say about this book that was positive. PS I was the tutor for this class as well, therefore, I would say to stay away from this book and less you want to be cripled by the authors lack of faith in your ability to make it in the real world.
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Summary: Lousy Use of own created classes and tons of mistakes!!
Review: I am currently a programming major and have both C and C++ knowledge. Recently I just finished a Java class that used this book. This book is very poorly designed, the book is very jumbled and in the middle of explanations puts two pages worth of code mid-line into a sentence. It is also visually hard to look at, it has glossy pages and faint blue ink in some areas. The biggest complaint is that it uses what is called SavitchIn Class to do many portions of it's examples which will be useless in the real world. For example when you create a GUI the author would like you to use his WindowDestroyer Class instead of the setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE) that is a method within the JFrame. Therefore, this book is more of a crutch to beginners. Their are tons of errors too! For example there are several loops that the books show as valid code and if you decide to use them you will end up in an infinate loop causing your program to be stuck. I would recommend either Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel, almost any Deitel & Deitel book, or even the Sam's teach yourself Java in 21 days books over this. There were 25 fellow students in my class and less then a handful had much to say about this book that was positive. PS I was the tutor for this class as well, therefore, I would say to stay away from this book and less you want to be cripled by the authors lack of faith in your ability to make it in the real world.
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Summary: Difficult to follow
Review: I bought this book because I wanted to help my son who is taking a java course which uses the Savitch book as the main text. I was also impresssed by the high marks given the book by other reviewers. I must say that thus far I am somewhat disappointed. The presentation of the material does not flow well making it tedious to digest the points made by the author. An additional problem is the text which is small and on glossy paper making it difficult to read under artificial light. I agree with others that the author is thorough. However, one has to go back and forth between pages to grasp the full meaning of an explanation or example. The writing style is typical of many academic textbooks in the technical and business fields; ponderous, laden with trivalities and dry. There are books on Java that are much more accessible. I have been reading "Beginning Java Objects" by jacquie Barker (Wrox). This IMHO is an excellent book that reflects the author's concern for the student reader. Despite my criticisms, I intend to plow on to the end of Savitch because my son needs me to do so. Also,I sense he has something important to say on Java, but getting to it requires a lot of unecessary work.
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